Coal cancer rates in China linked to mass extinction event 250 million years ago
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Dual-degree chemistry and paleogeology PhDs will no doubt love this peculiar connection unearthed by researchers and presented by the journal Environmental Science and Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society.
The British and Chinese researchers were studying the unusually high rate of cancer among nonsmoking women in parts of Yunnan province. Numerous studies point to the use of coal as a fuel in open hearths, but the question of why the cancer rates were higher than in other areas where coal is burned in homes has puzzled scientists.
Lead author David J. Large, from the University of Nottingham, suggests that silica from the volcanic event blamed for mass extinctions about 250 million years ago precipitated onto the peat bogs that over time became the coal deposits mined in the region. Chemical interaction between the mineral and volatile organic compounds may be the culprit for the high cancer rates, the authors suggest.
‘From a geological perspective an aspect of this coal that has not been considered and could have produced coal with unusual properties is its paleogeography and geological setting, precisely adjacent to the Permo-Triassic Boundary (PTB). This geological boundary coincides with the largest known mass extinction event, an event that resulted from a major geochemical perturbation of the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere (17) and may have influenced the coal chemistry.’
Crystalline silica, which also is found in asbestos, is a known carcinogen.
-- Geoff Mohan